Virtual Shtetl has run a troubling article by Adam Dylewski about the uncertain, and apparently bleak, future of the Regional Museum housed in the thick-walled, 17th-century former synagogue in Łęczna, Poland — long recognized as one of the best solutions for use of a former synagogue in Poland in a place where no Jews now live. Mayor Teodor Kosiarski, who recently met with authorities of the Lubelskie Province and the Head of the Lubelskie Museum, outlined the problems in a news conference.
The synagogue, where the museum is based, has been running into ruin, and no funds for its restoration have been raised. The Jewish community demands that the building be handed back to them. Presently, the museum is administered by the Lubelskie Museum in Lublin, which wants its regional branch office to be taken over by the local authorities. This is one of the postulates of a broader plan of the decentralizing of museums. […] Provincial authorities desire to hand the museum in Leczna to the district office or to the Jewish community. However, this plan would cost the city circa PLN 300 thousand per annum plus extra costs of restoration works. Leczna does not have a sufficient budget to cover all these costs.
Dylewski rightly notes that the museum, which showcases regional history and artifacts as well as important examples of Judaica, “has set an example for local authorities who did not [know] how to make use of neglected buildings that formerly belonged to Jewish communities” — and this makes its uncertain fate all the more disturbing. Leczna, he writes, “does have funds allocated for the football club aspiring to an extra class but has no money for one of the most interesting Judaica museums in Poland.”
The case, he writes, raises many questions:
Why has there been no initiative to rescue the museum on the part of the local government? […]. Why does the status of the building still remain unclear although the legal status of buildings belonging to Jewish communities has been governed for ten-odd years now? Ten-odd years should suffice to complete legal proceedings, including possible appeals to the Supreme Court or to Strasburg. Where are local fundraisers, who play a crucial part in the world of aid programs run by ministries, the European Union, Norway and others? The local government has benefited only from some of these resources. For example, the role of the local government could consist in co-operating in raising funds. What is missing in Leczna then? Is it the funds or the goodwill of a coherent plan to face the problem?
The Łęczna synagogue was built originally in the 17th century. Devastated by the Nazis, it was rebuilt after World War II to house the Regional Museum, which opened there in 1966. The restoration retained the four-pillared bimah and decorated Aron ha Kodesh. A memorial plaque was affixed on an outer wall in 1961, and decades later gravestones rescued from the destroyed Jewish cemetery were grouped in an enclosed area outside the synagogue as a sort of memorial.
See more pictures HERE on the city web site